Michigan Law Review Volume 109 Issue 3 2010 When a Company Confesses Christopher Jackson University of Michigan Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Courts Commons, and the Criminal Procedure Commons Recommended Citation Christopher Jackson, When a Company Confesses, 109 MICH. L. REV. 387 (2010). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol109/iss3/3 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. NOTE WHEN A COMPANY CONFESSES ChristopherJackson* Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a defendant is normally obligated to attend all of the proceedings against her However Rule 43(b)(2) carves out an exception for organizational defendants, stating that they "need not be present" if represented by an attorney. But on its face, the language of 43(b)(2) is ambigu- ous: is it the defendant or the judge who has the discretion to decide whether the defendant appears? That is, may a judge compel the presence of an organizational defendant? This Note addresses the ambiguity in the context of the plea colloquy, considering the text of several of the Rules, the purposes behind the plea colloquy proceeding, and the inherent powers doctrine. It argues that district court judges do in fact have the authority to compel an organiza- tional defendant's presence at a plea colloquy.